2nd stove? is it worth it?

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I have a Regency insert that is freestanding on my hearth in a 1000 Sq. Ft Family room and a Pellet stove on the other end of my house in the dining room. The two rooms are connected via a long 28’ hallway with 4 bedrooms off the hall. I wish I could post a diagram, but I am not that intelligent. The Regency heats the 25’ X 25’ family room with 14’ vaulted ceilings to 75 to 78 degrees with little difficulties. I mounted a corner fan at the entrance to the hall and can blow the heat the length of the hall and some travels into the bedrooms. I can keep the bedrooms at 65 to 68 degrees when the outside air temp stays above 30 degrees. The Dining room stays around 60 to 62 degrees. As the outside temperature drops below 30, I fire the pellet stove up in the mornings (kids getting ready for school) and again before bed. With the pellet stove and the Regency running the bedrooms heat up to 72 to 74 degrees. I run my pellet stove at the lowest setting and use 40 pounds every other day. When the outside temp drop into the single digits I turn the pellet stove up one notch. This set-up has worked great for me and keeps the wife and kids nice and toasty warm.
 
What's amazing about the layout you posted is how similar it is to my house, minus the livingroom. My house is smaller. between 2100 and 2200, and I heat pretty well with my Osburn 1800i. Today, temp was anything I wanted it to be with outside temps in the high 30s, not temp around 25 and inside temp is around 75 in my diningroom, near 80 in the livingroom, but the stove is loafing on some sumac at the moment. One point though, my access to the stove room ( would be like your familyroom) has two sets of french doors, so my air flow is pretty good.

On the coldest days like we had mid last week, the stove had trouble keeping up, and I figured that if I had to use the oil 5-10 of the coldest days of the year, I was o.k. with that. My wife thinks a second stove might be good, maybe in the kitchen, but she realizes it would be too much. If we ever made the house bigger, I would seriously consider a second stove that was very large so it would be the main stove and the current Osburn would take up the slack on really cold days. In your home, a small second stove, would likely be just the ticket. Something like one of the small Hearthstones or a small Morso. Something that would really add to the decor, or maybe one of the Aussie Cook stoves.
 
Better Safe, I just signed on the site to get some answers on a VC Resolute I brought home today, but
this topic caught my eye. You all seem to be talking about a second stove other than wood, but is there
an air quality danger with two cat wood stoves in an area just a touch over 3600 sf?
 
Welcome carg, are you asking about interior or exterior air quality? Certainly burning two stoves is going to have a greater impact on the neighborhood air on a low pressure day than a single stove. In an urban or dense suburban environment this could be serious when there are several homes heating with wood in the same neighborhood. That's why there is a movement to promote clean burning stoves and why I am exploring manufactured logs which burn much cleaner.
 
I'm asking about the availability of air for the stoves themselves. I built the house three years ago, and
had a double block chimney installed (two flues). The first stove, a Harman Exception, is in the basement,
and the thing will heat the whole 3600 sf until we get below 10 above. I hadn't found a good deal on a
second stove until today, so now I'm asking the questions before I bring the VC Resolute in and hook it up
to the other chimney.....I built and insulated the house, and it's about as tight as you can get using conventional methods. So my first question, I guess, is will I starve the stoves if both are burning (not an
every day occurrence) at the same time without bringing in some air from outside? The kit mentioned above
may not be practical, as the basement is finished, and there is stone laid up behind where the first floor stove would go.....no place to pipe it, unless it is a double-wall kit which draws from inside the chimney. Do I need to worry about it?

As for exterior worries, I have none. The Harman burns very clean.....you can't even see smoke most of the time.....very happy with that stove. I have looked long and hard for a second, but appearantly people just don't let them go!
 
First of all, good going for making the house as tight as possible. If the Harman does the job down to 10 degrees, that is a good sign your hard work is paying off. As a matter of fact, for 3600 sq. ft, it's awesome. So the possibility of adding an OAK to the Harman is out, correct? Would it be possible to add a small vent near the Harman with a damper?

Tell me about the Resolute, what year? Does it have an OAK option? Would that be a possibility?
 
I've got 2 stoves (came with the house, sprawling 1900's victorian) and it really makes a difference. My house is essentially a house and a barn joined w/ a kitchen between, so it's two separate structures (separate basements, etc). It makes sense in my situation to have two, but there are two things to remember:

1. 2X as much wood (or some multiplier above 1.5X)
2. 2X the mess to clean up (bark, ashes, indoor wood piles)

I must admit bucking, splitting, stacking and hauling 2x the wood is a bit more of a project...but in my situation it is well worth it.
 
We've got 2, and when the wind is blowing and it's 10 degrees or colder, they're both lit. We have a park behind our place, so it's wide open for the wind to blow through. I'm happy and warm to have them both.
 
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